how people in extremely cold places can survive? For example, Oymyakon in Siberia regularly gets below – 55°c / – 67°f, and I’m sure we’ve all seen those videos of people throwing boiling water into the air where it freezes instantly. How does blood not freeze? How are mucous membranes and eyeballs not frozen within seconds? How does anybody pee without it instantly freezing?
Obviously people live in heated housing, but how can people go outside/ pee outside without injury? I’ve wondered about this for years, and even more so when I see pictures of animals seemingly frozen in place mid-movement.
Thank you
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Most folks here covered it pretty well but I’ll add a little more info about the extreme, extreme cold. I spent 13 months at the South Pole where my job required me to walk out to a telescope and back (1km each way) 3 times per week. In my experience there’s a lot of truth to the ‘you get used to it’ comments. By the end of summer, -20F or -30F didn’t seem bad and I’d wear trail running shoes and minimal layers, light gloves and no face protection or goggles. Around the mid -40s it started to feel a little challenging, and I found in the mid-50s F that my eyelashes would freeze closed and going without face protection started to be fairly uncomfortable. I wore winter hiking boots through the -40s to -60s. At those temperatures it’s risky to let any exposed skin touch metal or other heat-conducting surfaces outside. I accidentally leaned into a piece of metal with my forearm when I was trying to unscrew some bolts on the roof of the building and ended up with a little frost nip just from a second or two of contact. Colder than about -60F it felt legit dangerous to be outside to me. Those temps require goggles and face covering, especially if there’s any wind. Somewhere in the -40F to -60F range snot freezes in your nose, which feels weird, but your nose isn’t damaged. Getting down into the -70F and lower range required a lot of cold weather gear: two hats, two balaclavas, goggles, several layers under a heavy, hooded coat, two pairs of gloves, several layers of pants and two pairs of socks in the very warm, heavy boots we got issued when we deploy. If there’s any wind you need to pay careful attention to make sure you don’t have any exposed skin or gaps in your gear. I got frost nip several times from air getting into a gap between my goggles and balaclava. Colder than the mid -80s F becomes a real challenge – all of the cold weather gear, and a determination to get where you’re going without delay. I could feel the cold seeping further and further in towards my body as I got towards the end of the walk. I’m not sure I could have done a 2k walk without serious risk of hypothermia and/or frostnip to my face and hands.
The coldest ambient temperature telescope walk I did was -93F and the coldest with wind chill was in the -140s. Both were significant psychological challenges. I was not the bravest nor hardiest soul on station though – some of the other guys and gals on station over winter were outside a lot more than me. The coldest temperature I experienced was -104 F ambient. I did a quick photo shoot on the back deck of the station wearing just indoor clothes. My eyes didn’t freeze but they didn’t feel right either, my hands and feet hurt right away (not from frost nip, just aching from the cold), and after a minute it started to feel like I was getting an ice cream / slushie headache but on the outside of my brain instead of in the middle. I spent about two minutes total outside, with quick warm up trips back inside after about 30 seconds of exposure and, while I wasn’t injured, it did take a few hours for my hands and feet to stop hurting and feel warm again.
But as others have said, the right gear makes it manageable and you do get used to it, at least down to about -70F, in my experience. I never felt used to anything colder than that.
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